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WINDBELLS OF SUMMER 



WINDBELLS OF 
SUMMER 



LEONE SCOTT 

n 




BOSTON: RICHARD G. BADGER 

The Copp Clark Co., Limited^ Toronto 



Copyright, 1915, by Leone Scott 



All Rights Reserved 






Thb Gorham Press, Boston, U. S. A- 



MARS 1915 

©CI,.A393844 



To a Dreamer 
Along the Highway 



WINDBELLS OF SUMMER 

"In the sound of bells you will find every word 
and every name that you choose to imagine." 

— Leonardo. 







Windbells of Summer 
I 

IT is a summer day that boasts of blue skies and 
slow moving clouds. Up in a balcony with 
broad eaves, I may swing high, or swing low, 
as my fancy pleases. Swinging low with the 
breeze, I watch a bit of the river, through the 
white arch of the long bridge, spanning the valley. 
It glistens into the green shadows. The water- 
drops rise to meet the kiss of the sunbeams, and the 
hours of day lose their count. 

Out in the branches of trees, the birds are be- 
witched by some new theme of elysium. They 
flaunt their bright feather-tips in arrant oblivion. 
Bird and mate fly near, and trill their scornful mock- 
ery. Two chirping things find happiness, and I, 
seeking the unattainable, follow the lure of poets 
and fools, and search the far-away castle of dreams, 
at the rainbow's furthermost end. 

They flit about, a law unto themselves; con- 
tent with the delusion of that which is beyond a 
II 



WINDBELLS OF SUMMER 

world grasp, they continue to chatter in their in- 
cessant jargon, as if pleased to break the quiet of 
my dream of day. Now, they have gone a-nest 
building. 

Just to feel and to breathe, and to dream ; and to 
find new emotions in the strangeness of new sounds! 
Mingled colors swim before me, swinging. Moving 
water, mist-hill, and changing sky. Broad rifts of 
light stream through the shadow of uneven trees, in 
their slow march up the hillside. 



'And still a garden by the river blows. 



12 



WINDBELLS OF SUMMER 

Was there ever a love dream that had not its garden 
of flowers! 



My day garden rims the river where it meets the 
reflected blue of the skies. The pathways cross 
where hyacinth and mignonette mingle with colors 
of yellow and red. Their redolence gives back my 
youth, and I live those other summer days when like 
flowers listened to love whispers, as they bordered 
the edge of lover-lanes, in the heart's own highway 
of dreams. 



Above my head a Windbell turns, and spins its 
bits of colored glass, on long threads. This sense- 
less toy, fashioned in Japan, has a changeful tinkling 
that shapes my dreams. Its tintinnabulations hold 
the echoes of many bells. They drift about me, 

JVindblown from restless seas. 
Windswept by restless seas. 

There are dreams of half forgotten things, 
still treasured. The friends once made in 
13 



WINDBELLS OF SUMMER 

books, come out of buried years. In the fleet- 
ing turn of blue and green as the disc moves 
in the breeze, they come and go. They can not 
change for their only substance is my thought. Life 
sweeps by in flashes, and in the stillness come and go 
the shadow people of my books and dreams. 

Lazily swinging, the river trail and the winding 
flower-bordered path swim before me. But the low 
symphonic tinkling lures me to those far-away lands I 
know so well, yet have never seen. In varying tone 
there runs a melody that tunes my heart. 




The tinkling Windbell, that turns, and spins its 
bits of colored glass, on long threads. 



14 



WINDBELLS OF SUMMER 

In the discordant clash, resisting against the 
winds, I feel the inspiration that barbaric music 
lends. I am no longer annoyed by the sense of fu- 
tility, nor wish to shape new harmonies. I do not 
deplore the fates' eternal adjustment. I am obliv- 
ious of a humanity that ever tries to create a new 
definition of happiness. In this moment of delicious 
comfort, the wind-bells jingle melodiously. To the 
sound of rushing waters, pageants fill my path of 
dreams. In phantasma, — 

"Still lovely and still fugitive" 

they sweep across the waste of 
years. My swing is still. 



There is the tinkle of cymbals, and the dancing 
maidens of Palestine move to and fro in the mo- 
notony of rhythm. That maiden, did you see her? 
In her great, deep eyes still lurks a wrong. But 
the grace of her body that holds you, this beauty of 
Palestine! There are long processions of priests, 
15 



WINDBELLS OF SUMMER 

who wear the robe of ephod, all of blue, and bells 
of gold, tinkling bells of gold. There is the echo 
of songs, and the feasts of Osiris have begun. The 
joyous worshipers of Cybele pass by. In the folds 
of their garments, the color of blue and of gold, 
are bells that sound like ancient music in an ancient 
tongue, breathing hope and tremulous belief. It is 
the consonant of ages, that thrills me, as the har- 
mony of a perfect chord. 



The spirit of bells unseen, unheard, that melts the 
discord in the human heart! 



In the ringing clash resisting against the winds, 
is the soft falling music of reverberant glass. 



In the slow, shadowy tinkle of a single moving 
disc, old stories, and phantom characters appear. 
Life seems but the drift of things repeated long be- 
fore. My swing breathes with me. There is no 
mockery in the limpid wood-thrush song. The river 
i6 



WINDBELLS OF SUMMER 

flashes out its continuous sheen. The flowers are 
bright in the last warmth of the sun. My heart 
lights up in the charm and the poetry of bells. 



Can it be true that happiness escapes from the un- 
mindful little things? 
Just little spinning threads of tinkling glass! 



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17 



II 



II 

IN the changing winds my bells are all a-clash. 
They fall in strange confusion. My vision 
of life becomes as fragmentary as shifting 
leaves from many forests. To my desolate 
heart, comes the quick, joyous notes in the wake of 
discord ; it is like the ripple of laughing waters. 
Once more my swing is still, and I await the coming 
of my people of dreams. A soft falling echo is lur- 
ing spirits of booklore to me. 



Once upon a time, you know, there lived a fair 
princesse, who wore draped robes of white. Her 
lovely face was always veiled, quite hid from mor- 
tal view. Across the country wide she rode, to aid 
in kingly quest; on palfrey white, caparisoned with 
velvet, embroidered with gold, and soft fringes 
swept the ground. Her trappings held a tinkling 
music heard far away. Woe to the knave who lin- 
gered in the wayside when warned by the lilt of 
those silver bells. Perhaps she was the spirit of 
Goodness, and Purity, and Truth. Perhaps she 
was La Belle Dame sans Merci. She may be that 
21 



WINDBELLS OF SUMMER 

to you, and this to me, and we are thinking 
how she always inspired a lover-prince to 

Ride a cock-horse to Banbury CrosSj 
To see a fine lady on a white horse. 

For, 

With rings on her fingers and bells on her toes. 
She shall have music wherever she goes. 

As my Faerie Queen smiles on her lover at the end 
of the story, and they go out of the pathway of 
dreams, a single strand of glass moves slow and 
musically. Doves croon in the branches about me. 
It is the hour of vespers, and there is the golden 
glory of the sinking sun. The perfume of flowers 
is an incense, and in the silence of sanctuaries, faces 
of women of sorrows haunt my dream. 



"Some players upon plaintive strings. 
Publish their wistfulness abroad; 
I have not spoken of these things. 
Save to one man and unto God." 
22 



WINDBELLS OF SUMMER 

My soul has long treasured the vision. A woman 
kneels with upturned face, and hands close pressed. 
Her eyes are deepened by the shadows, and 
filled with brimming tears. Her mouth is red and 
sweet. Her perfect, ringless fingers, hold a beaded 
chain. On each bead entwined, drops a glistening 
pearl, — a rosary of uncounted tears. The slow in- 
cantation of priests sings a monotone. I would not 
know her grief, for 

"All sorrow ranks the same with God." 

In this hour of prayer, she waits, and dares to 
hope. In the mystical silence, 

"White incense from the altar breathes 

Rich fragrance; 
Or, flung from sivinging censer, shrouds 

The taper lights." 

A note of music, and the host is raised. Her heart 

is blessed through all eternity. It is the moment 

23 



WINDBELLS OF SUMMER 

the stars sing in the heavens their song of human 
love. 



Inconstant fancies come and go, as memory flings 
her shifting scenes. 

Through my windbells, run soft melodies that be- 
come but echoes of sound. 



Before me, lay uneven stretches of land. There 
are long, hot days, and nights that are filled with 
clear stars. On a western slope, a woman watches 
the sands of the hour-glass, while she waits for the 
moment when she will return to her child-hood 
home. I hear the incessant tinkle of sheep bells, 
across the dull blue waste, and I know that she 
who waits through the interminable hours, in un- 
sleeping sorrow, is saved from the madness of the 
hills. 

The faint, slow tinkle of broken glass! 



^^ ^^=f=t UiU--- 



24 



Ill 



Ill 



WHAT legion of stories and odd super- 
stitions might be culled from old 
chronicles! What traditions of bells 
if old castle walls could speak! Bells 
that inspire revenge, and bells that crush with fear! 
I hear them all in the echo of things! 

Do you remember the Venus of Ille, a statue of 
bronze, who closed her finger upon the wedding 
ring, and who killed the life of a bride? For this 
sorcery she was cast into a bell, only to become a 
lasting haunting evil. For, says the mother who 
mourns the death of her son, — 

"Since that bell has rung at Ille, the vines have 
frozen twice!" 



Now my windbells peal sardonic laughter. I hear 
the jingle of sleighbells. 



Do you remember those bells that filled with 
27 



WINDBELLS OF SUMMER 

dread, and brought a murderer to feel the sense of 
crime to the depths of his stricken soul? 

"What a tale their terror tells 

Of despair! 
How they clang, and clash, and roar! 

What a horror they outpour 
On the bosom of the palpitating air!" 




28 



WINDBELLS OF SUMMER 

In the quaint tales gathered from the dust webs 
of the Dark Ages, there is an old story, perhaps you 
may know, of the church bell of Falkenberg. This 
the mercenary Saxon ordered brought to him, that he 
might melt it into coin. The good but horrified 
bishop remonstrated in behalf of the silver bell for 
so long a part of his church, and dearly beloved. 
His timely plea cost him the ignominious experience 
of having the great bell tied around his neck, and 
both were cast into a dungeon well, six feet deep. 
When the despot bandit, Falkenstein, grew ill unto 
death of a bad conscience, the bishop's immortal 
soul sent the ominous measures from the depths of 
the earth. That this story is true, both doctor, and 
astrologer, who kept the death watch, agree: the 
deep tones chimed eternal damnation, the moment 
of his decease, at the bleak hour of midnight, upon 
the last fatal stroke of the hour-bell. 



29 



WINDBELLS OF SUMMER 

As if in defiance of my mockery, the windbelh 
over my head, echo in slow, lugubrious tones, like 
a muffled voice and a melancholy tale. 



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30 



WINDBELLS OF SUMMER 

When a child, no dreary sound held such inde- 
scribable terror, as the first solemn stroke of the 
village church bell sending a death warning to 
every home. Each repeated vibration, which swept 
the gloom of night, filled my child soul, with the 
questioning that has no answer. I am told that the 
custom of tolling, came of the belief in the power 
of bells to terrify the evil spirits lying in wait to 
grasp the souls of those who had died, and was 
known as the "passing bell." 

When all the living things of night mingle with 
the gray shadows of trees and the death-bell tolls the 
"passing hour," even the live shadow-things stop and 
listen, and wait in the silence. Death comes una- 
ware; we may not see, we may not hear, but the 
memory of that monotone follows us through the 
years, past the sloping hillside, calling us far from 
the gardens of dreams, and of visions. 



There are echoes of odd superstitions, and old 
customs that hold charm and quaintness. Bells have 
been known to charm away pestilence; to allay a 
31 



WINDBELLS OF SUMMER 

stormy gale. Verily, who knows what hidden, sub- 
tle power lies in the "drowsy sequence," of the vil- 
lage bell, 

"Falling at intervals upon the ear 
In cadence sweet," 

that calls to mass against our will, 
or secures the trust of childhood, or brings back 
the primal strength of an early religious faith. 

Whatever is accordant or true responds to the vi- 
bration of bells. They are the tuning forks which 
set the human heart in harmony with the Infinite. 
They make us live again those best moments when 
we view the white feather on the plain, and God 
is clear 



And swinging. I hear in the deepening tiuilight. 
slozv tones of glass, broken and color-splashed! 

^ -T I f :1 

32 



IV 



IV 



OUT from the low eaves of my balcony, 
blue skies have turned to unfathomable 
grayness. From hidden nests, the birds 
fling out chirpings of forgotten gossip, 
at intervals, and then are still. I am alone with a 
thousand nestling things in shrub, and flower, and 
tree. The river is yet clear in the half-light, wait- 
ing to mirror the moon, as it rises from the gray 
mist cloud, fringed with trees; as it clears its way 
into the open blue, scattering the stars low to the 
world's rim. 



?i^^S^^^E 




35 



WINDBELLS OF SUMMER 

My windbells of day have changed to carillons 
of night. They are sending their broken tones 
against the rising winds, through sibilant trees. 

"I can not see what flowers are at my feet. 
Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs/' 

In the stillness of evening, I hear only the echo of 
things. My people of dreams scurry away. I have 
but a glimpse of shadowy faces, and hear the light 
fall of twinkling feet, through the darkness. Only 
the echo of things! 

There comes the echo of coast bells. It is the 
tocsin's sound, from the bell-tower on the seas, or, 
it is the bell-buoy, near the shore line, guarding 
against rocks and shoals. I hear the shrill bells of 
Louvain, summoning monks at scourging time. I 
hear the bells of Louvain. It is now the "passing 
bell," for a soldier's death, and a city's doom. 

Again the trees whisper together, and the voices 
of many chimes, break in on the descending night. 
And the mingled color tones, falling upon the air, 
36 



WINDBELLS OF SUMMER 

chime the nielodj' of the song. 

"He, watching over Israel, slumbers not, nor sleeps." 

I see a youth in tattered garment, looking up, out 
of the shadows, singing the praises that spring 
from his heart. This hope is his soul's salvation. 

I see the poor dreamer, Toby, trying to make 
some meaning out of the great shapes of bells in the 
gloom; but they remain shadowy, dark and dumb. 
Those wonder-tones that peopled the air for so long, 
so mysteriously, so often heard and never seen, so 
full of awesome melody, that would not let him rest. 
The poor dreamer, who expected to be beckoned by 
"something that was not a bell, and yet was what 
he had heard so often in the chimes, who, when he 
finally viewed her, "giddy, confused and out of 
breath looked about him vacantly, and sunk down 
in a swoon." 

With the rush of summer winds, again I hear the 
echo of broken chimes, the chimes of Notre Dame, 
and see the monster face of Quasimodo, watching a 
37 



WINDBELLS OF SUMMER 

priest falling in slow torture, from high pinnacles; 
and I hear the sound of bells, high above the clouds, 
pealing forth a prayer of mercy for a damned soul. 



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38 



WINDBELLS OF SUMMER 

"But whence, and whither fade away 
Your echoes from our dayf 
You take our hearts with gentle pain. 
Tremble, and pass again." 

It is the echo of a sweeter chime that tolls in 
memory of a Quaker poet's death. The bells of St. 
Boniface, I hear ringing with tender cadence, because 
for many years a poet had loved their singing 
tones. Peace on earth. Goodwill to men, ring the 
Bells of St. Boniface, but the echo of their words is 
lost, only to you and to me, who dream. 



Breathing the incense of half-closed petals, my 
senses are filled with vague, sweet dreams. Women 
of beauty, women of sorrow, and women of joy, 
bearing incense that has the perfume of lilies, of 
hyacinths, and of red roses, sweep by in long proces- 
sions. I hear the drone of slow chants from behind 
closed doors. I hold my dreams of castles and tour- 



39 



WINDBELLS OF SUMMER 

naments, and of gardens with high walls where Pier- 
rots and Columbines play. I feel the stress of bat- 
tles fought long ago, and now. I see the stark dead 
thing that was a mother's son, and hear the stifled 
cry of womankind. But, above it all, somewhere, 
near, and somewhere, far away, I hear always the 
silver throated bells, musically chiming the hours. 



All come to me from the wide realm of dreams, 
in the faint sweet tinkle of broken glass, prismatic 
as life, moving in the clear air, with melody heard 
in dreams; There is the sound of temple bells, and 
bells of Mandelay ; of bells that ring from the storm- 
stressed sea. Bells that have given their song to the 
wind and the water-brook which, in turn, have sent 
the tone across the sleeping fields, and through the 
somber forests, bearing on lofty breezes its heaven- 
drifted thought, for those who dream, that they may 
not lay up their treasures upon earth. 



40 



WINDBELLS OF SUMMER 

Stopping as suddenly as broken thought, the music 

of the windbells fall; 
They fall in the rush of the wind. 



I hear only the shivering sound of broken glass! 



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41 



WINDBELLS OF SUMMER 

"Domes and towers and castles, 

fancy builded. 
There lie lost to daylight's garish 

beams — 
There lie hidden, till unveiled 

and gilded. 
Glory gilded, by my nightly 

dreams!" 



42 



